Frugal February #10: Bake, Don't Buy, Those Cookies

How often do you eat cookies?  How often do you bake cookies?  If those two numbers aren't the same, you can make a frugal change.

Cookies are simple.  There aren't too many complicated cookie recipes.  Cookies are also cheap to make.  Not to mention all the extra garbage. . . er, 'ingredients'. . . that come with cookies from the store.  Things like high fructose corn syrup and preservatives. Things your homemade cookies won't have.  You could even, maybe, say they are healthy cookies, since they have so many fewer bad-for-you ingredients.

Like most things, cookies don't take a whole lot of time to make.  An hour, tops, and you've got several dozen cookies cooling on your counter, the dishes are washed and put away, and your house smells heavenly.

I'll even give you some of my tried and true (and sell at the farmers' market) recipes so you can try cookie baking for yourself.  (Extra incentive: if you use farm fresh eggs--vs the ones from the store--you can even snitch a few fingerfuls of cookie batter without worrying much about salmonella).

Chocolate Chip
makes approx. 3 dozen

3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter
1/2 cup lard or shortening
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla (real is best, imitation will do)
2 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 to 1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (real if you can find them, imitation will do)

Cream butter, lard/shortening and sugars.  Add the eggs and vanilla, stir until blended.  Add the flour, soda and salt, stir until thoroughly mixed.  Add chocolate chips, stir again to distribute.

Onto ungreased cookie sheets, place large spoonfuls of cookie dough about 2" apart and 2" from sides of pan.  I use what we call "big spoons" at this little place here--the large spoon a man would eat soup or cereal with--as opposed to the smaller spoons kids and I use.  (In other words, a tablespoon versus a teaspoon size difference).  On a large cookie sheet, I can easily fit 4 rows of 3 cookies each, or a dozen cookies. 

Put the cookie sheets into an oven preheated to 375 degrees.  If you have a convection oven, and enough large cookie sheets, you can bake all the cookies at once.  Otherwise, in a regular oven, just use the center rack and do one sheet at a time.

Bake 9-11 minutes, or until cookies are desired doneness.  We like ours lightly browned on bottom, but not brown yet on top, so they are still slightly soft when cooled. The darker you let your cookie get, the crisper it will cool. Remove from oven, carefully take cookies off sheet with a spatula and place on a wire rack to cool.

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Peanut Butter
makes approx. 3 dozen, needs time to chill

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup shortening
1/4 cup softened butter
1 egg
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Mix the sugars, peanut butter, shortening and butter until creamed.  Stir in egg.  Add dry ingredients, and stir until well blended.  Cover and put in the fridge for at least 3 hours but not more than 24.

Heat your oven to 375.  With a small spoon, scoop dough and then roll between your hands to make 1 1/4" balls.  Put about 3" apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Using a fork that has been dipped in water, flatten each dough ball, making a criss-cross pattern with fork.  Bake 9-10 minutes until light brown.  Cool on cookie sheet about 1 minute, then remove to a wire rack to finish cooling.

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Molasses Cookies
makes about 3 dozen, needs time to chill

1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter
1/4 cup molasses (I use blackstrap for extra flavor and lots of iron!)
1 egg
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp salt
sugar

Mix brown sugar, butter, and shortening until creamed.  Add molasses and egg, stir well.  Add all dry ingredients except the sugar, stir until well blended. Cover and put in the fridge at least 1 hour, no more than 24. 

Heat oven to 375.  Shape dough into 1 1/4" balls (like w/the peanut butter cookie recipe),  then roll each ball in sugar.  Place balls about 2" apart on ungreased cookie sheet.  Do not flatten.  Bake 10-11 minutes or just until tops of cookies crack.  Cool on cookie sheet about 1 minute, then remove to a wire rack to finish cooling.

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Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies
makes about 3 dozen

1 cup (2 sticks) softened butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 cups rolled oats (oatmeal)
1 1/2 cups butterscotch flavored chips

Heat oven to 375 degrees.

Mix butter and sugars until creamed.  Add eggs and vanilla, and stir well.  Add in flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and stir again until well blended.  Add oats and butterscotch chips, then stir some more until well distributed.

Onto ungreased cookie sheets, place large spoonfuls (the big eating spoons, not big serving spoons) of dough about 2-3" apart.  Bake for 8-10 minutes, depending on if you want soft or crispy cookies.  Remove from oven and let sit for 1 minute before taking cookies off sheet and placing them on wire cooking rack.

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Now that you have some tried and true recipes to get you started, fire up that oven and bake cookies next time you're tempted to go buy some.  It's much cheaper, and is also a great activity to do with your kids.

You may have noted in my recipes using chips (chocolate, butterscotch), I do not use an entire bag for one batch of cookies.  The bags of chips will have recipes on them that tell you to use the whole package.  But, by reducing the number of chips I use, I have found an amount that still flavors the cookies while allowing me to be a bit frugal.  I can make one bag of chocolate chips stretch to 2 batches of cookies if I only use 1 cup per batch.  And for the butterscotch chips, I can stretch 2 bags of chips between 3 batches of cookies.  Sneaky, I am ;0)